How JFK's Dream Lives On

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Beth

It was 2 a.m. when the future president finally turned up at the University of Michigan on Oct. 14, 1960. In the middle of a cross-country tour to shore up votes, Sen. John F. Kennedy was so tired he joked that he’d come to Ann Arbor to go to bed. But something about the youthful crowd—10,000 students strong—jolted him awake, inspiring him to drop his notes and speak off the cuff. “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana?” he asked. “Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?”

His speech captivated newlywed graduate students Alan and Judy Guskin. A few nights later at a diner, they scrawled a call to action on a napkin, urging students to heed Kennedy’s words and start a volunteer movement.

The letter was printed in the college paper, and Michigan students shared it with friends at other schools. Kennedy’s advisers also took notice, and the Guskins were invited to meet him shortly before Election Day.

“Until Tuesday, we have to worry about the election,” he told her. “After that, the world.”

Within six months, on March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed the executive order creating the Peace Corps. Calling it the “kiddie korps,” critics predicted it would attract draft dodgers. But for Kennedy and his brief presidency, the Peace Corps became the living embodiment of his plea to “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Under the leadership of founding director Sargent Shriver (who passed away last month), the Peace Corps sent 600 volunteers to six countries that year with the mission that continues today: to spread peace and friendship. Since then, more than 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries in what some call “the toughest job you’ll ever love.”

MSNBC news commentator Chris Matthews was dropped off in southern Swaziland in 1968 and told to “develop this province”—at 22 and with a year of graduate-school economics under his belt. By the end of his two years, he’d assisted some 200 vendors and tradesmen, organized business-ed courses, and acted in a production of The Merchant of Venice.

For the boy from Philly who’d never left the country before, the experience gave the returning Matthews the confidence to knock on doors in Washington, D.C., leading to speechwriting work for President Jimmy Carter and a job as Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill’s top aide. “The Peace Corps gets you out of your rut,” Matthews says. “It’s a great challenge as a young person to walk into a village and start relating to people.”

PEACE CORPS BY THE NUMBERS

No. of volunteers serving:

8,655

Male/female ratio:

40/60

No. of countries served:

77

Oldest volunteer serving:

86

Average age:

28

Minimum age:

18

During his stint in Mali from 1988 to 1990, Tom Moriarty dug wells. “But the real thing I accomplished was forging human bonds,” says the now 44-year-old federal-government risk manager. In Mali, Moriarty got into a motorcycle accident and had to fly back to the U.S. for treatment. His host mother’s first impulse was to mail him clothes—she’d heard it was cold in America.

Still, navigating the often vast cultural divides isn’t always so easy. Darlene Grant, 50, is a social-work professor currently serving in Cambodia. An African-American who spent part of her childhood in the deep South, Grant thought she’d seen enough racism to last a lifetime. So she was unprepared for the stares she got in Battambang and the derisive shouts of “K’mao!”—Khmer for “black.” Riding her bike one day, she slid into a sewer and got stuck waist-deep in sludge. Passersby stopped and laughed, but no one offered to help.

The incident made Grant determined to encourage people to appreciate one another’s differences. Now, when strangers yell “K’mao!” she tells them to say “Sa’at k’mao surrii” —“beautiful black lady”—instead. After she returns to America next year, she’ll share these lessons with students. “We don’t have the luxury to be timid, to not speak up against inhumanity,” she says.

But Grant’s experience points to the risks involved in joining the Peace Corps. In 50 years, 23 volunteers have been murdered while serving. In January, ABC News reported that more than 1,000 volunteers had been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade, and some accuse the organization of ignoring their concerns and responding with apathy. “We will never be able to eliminate volunteers’ exposure to crimes overseas,” said Peace Corps director Aaron S. Williams, “but we will work continuously to maximize [their] health and safety.”

Volunteers today sign on for 27 months, which includes three initial months of study in language, culture, health, and technical skills. They work with residents in one of six areas: education, health, youth development, agriculture, the environment, or business. Stipends range from roughly $200 to $300 a month.

Under the Obama administration, the Peace Corps’ budget has risen from $340 million to $400 million (its largest ever). Driven in part by the president’s emphasis on service, 13,500 candidates vied for 4,000 slots in 2010.

The organization’s success is immensely gratifying to the Guskins, who served in Thailand from 1962 to 1964. Afterward, Alan embarked on an academic career culminating in the presidency of Antioch University. Judy became a professor, a leader in bilingual education, and a documentary filmmaker. (The couple divorced 21 years ago.)

“I spoke with a volunteer who’d returned six months ago, and he sounded just like someone who’d come back 30 years before,” Alan notes. “Everyone says the same thing—that they gained much more than they gave.”

Indeed, Roshi Matewere reflects daily on her time in the Peace Corps. When the 24-year-old Iranian-American arrived in 2000 at the school in Malawi where she would teach, she found that the students had no desks or supplies and only one textbook. She raised $500 from American friends and relatives to buy furniture for her class and convinced a Malawi official to fund desks for two other classes.

“When the truck with the desks came, the students surrounded me,” recalls Matewere, now 35 and a Roanoke, Va., math teacher married to a Malawian shopkeeper she met during her stint. “They cheered, and I started to cry.

“The Peace Corps taught me to be self-sustaining,” she adds. “Afterward, I felt like you could put me anywhere in the world and I’d survive.”

AMG/Parade Digital

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